What Are the Most Notable Quotes From 2009?

Let me take a break from responding to readers' quote queries.

I'm starting to think about my annual list, run by the Associated Press, of the top 10 most notable quotations of the year. By "notable" I mean "important" or "famous" or "particularly revealing of the spirit of our times" rather than necessarily being eloquent or admirable.

Some that seem to stand out this year include Mark Sanford's spokesman saying "The governor is hiking the Appalachian trail"; Joe Wilson's calling out "You lie!"; Kanye West interrupting Taylor Swift; and Sarah Palin on "Obama's death panel."

I would welcome suggestions of additional quotes from 2009, particularly ones from politics or popular culture or entertainment or sports or business or technology.

A Different Kind of Organ Market?

Who gets bumped to the front of UCLA medical center's liver-transplant line? The godfather of the Japanese mafia, according to this 60 Minutes video. Called the "John Gotti of Japan" by U.S. law enforcement, he moved to the top of UCLA's waiting list and got a liver in about six weeks rather than the average three years, reports 60 Minutes's Lara Logan, by allegedly paying $1 million for the transplant and making a sizable donation to the transplant center. He wouldn't have been so lucky in the UK.

Charity Won't Contain This Secondary Market

Each year I receive about 10 introductory economics textbooks from publishers. The purpose is to induce me to adopt the book in my 500-student principles class. Many years ago the books I received typical copies, same as the students would buy. Book-buyers came around seeking to buy my unused copies, but I never sold them. Others obviously did, because the publishers started stamping "Complimentary copy" on these freebies. One publisher even has my name printed on the copy I received. The purpose of all this is to prevent an increased supply in the secondary book market from competing with the supply of new books. I received a text today that had stamped, "...please return it to XX and we will donate $1 to

Do Earmarks Matter?

Making fun of earmarked Congressional spending is easy, feel-good entertainment. In this regard Sen. John McCain's Twitter feed, in which he reels off outrageous examples of pork-barrel spending (we especially liked "$300,000 for Texas A&M for 'Texas Height Modernization'") is a laugh factory. But is the war on pork a distraction from a larger problem? In 2008, Congress earmarked $17.2 billion for special projects. That amounts to less than one half of one percent of all Federal spending last year. The figure is less than NASA's 2008 budget ($17.3 billion) and less than half of the $35 billion the country spent on foreign aid last year (is there a "Finland Height Modernization" program?). A recent paper found almost no correlation between the amount of pork in a given year and the size of that year's deficit. The authors conclude: "While increasing levels of pork may be symptomatic of a larger government spending problem, they are not the underlying cause."